RAVE Collaboration Meeting (July 31-Aug. 1, 2017)

Motivation

The Radial Velocity Experiment (RAVE) is a magnitude-limited (9 < I < 12) survey of stars randomly selected in the Southern Hemisphere with medium-resolution spectra (R ~ 7500) covering the Ca-triplet region (841-879 nm). The fifth data release (DR5) spans the complete time frame from the start of RAVE observations in 2003 to their completion in 2013. Radial velocities from 520,781 spectra of 457,588 unique stars are presented, of which 255,922 stellar observations have parallaxes and proper motions from the Tycho-Gaia astrometric solution in Gaia DR1. For the main DR5 catalog, stellar parameters (effective temperature, surface gravity, and overall metallicity) are computed using the RAVE DR4 stellar pipeline, but calibrated using recent K2 Campaign 1 seismic gravities and Gaia benchmark stars, as well as results obtained from high-resolution studies.

Also included are temperatures from the Infrared Flux Method. We further provide a catalog of red giant stars for which the gravities were calibrated based only on seismology. Additional data products for subsamples of the RAVE stars include individual abundances for Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, Fe, and Ni, and distances found using isochrones.

The combination of RAVE data and the TGAS data of the first Gaia data release DR1 with an overlap of ~250,000 stars with 6-D phase space information provides a big step forward in analysing and understanding the stellar populations in the Milky Way concerning the spatial distribution, the dynamical properties, element abundances and age estimates.

 

Purpose of the RAVE 2017-meeting

The purpose of this workshop is to bring together people responsible for the RAVE data reduction and stellar parameter pipelines and people working with the data (thin/thick disc properties, chemical evolution, star clusters), which are core topics in the SFB 881.

This interaction between experts on RAVE data (data quality, errors, selection function, stellar parameters, abundances, ...) and scientists applying these data will be a major mutual benefit of the meeting.

This year the annual RAVE collaboration meeting is open to external scientists, namely for members of the SFB 881 'The Milky Way System'. Especially young scientists of the SFB 881 are explicitly encouraged to talk about work in progress.

Further information
Homepage of the Radial Velocity Experiment